


Replica Outtakes

by MittensMcEdgelord



Category: Prey (Video Game 2017)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:16:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittensMcEdgelord/pseuds/MittensMcEdgelord
Summary: This is an experiment! I have a lot of snips that I intended to use for Replica, but was never able to. Some were torn apart and had pieces used in other chapters without appearing. Others simply have been forgotten in the WIP folder. The story has progressed in such a way that I've accepted I can't use most of these in the actual work, but there are still many that I enjoy and feel would stand up well as supplementary material.Given how long the updates for Replica take, I thought posting outtakes would help keep me writing as well as keep people interested. ( It's also how I may answer questions or prompts for Mim, if any readers have them.) For the most part, they'll be posted in chronological order.This should likely go without saying, but these are best enjoyed if you have read my main story "Replica".





	1. Chapter 1

I don't know if I only went through the SIM once or more. I've been through it a hundred times in my mind.

Tonight is different. Tonight I remember their voices when they tested me. The adrenaline. The added bits of genetics or neural patterns or chemicals. Tonight when I dream I'm afraid.

I hear them call out to me through the coral. I hear them when the illusion fades and they tell me what's happening. They tell me to escape. They tell me to kill. They tell me to survive at any cost. They tell me what I am. It's not a name. It's not a scientific designation, that's all human doing. What I am, what I was, is a goal: Protect.

Protect us.

Protect us from the q-beams and the recycler and the wrench.

Tonight as the SIM plays out in my memory I'm not me. I see myself, Morgan, through the strands of coral. He's bright. Golden. Violet. Our energies engulf him. He's the first bridge ever made between us. And he's our death.

I feel the mimic they recycled. I know the hypos they give me are made with Typhon material. I wonder if that was in the latest one.

In my dream I feel that pull. The world collapsing on itself. But I'm not undone. I feel my limbs stretch out to fill the space I'm in. I feel infinite. The recycler charge dies and the world stretches back to normal. I taste fear. I grab him before the world even cones into focus. Fear and power and light. His helmet cracks and the face looking back at me isn't Morgan Yu. 

I'm at the mirror before I realize I'm out of bed. My reflection is the same. Gold skin, black hair, lousy beard, and six eyes. Yeah. Same old me. Same Mim.

So who was I? And who was I chasing?

I wish I knew. I'm not sure even Alex knows. I toy with the TranScribe, punching in his frequency without ever hitting send. What do I tell him? I had a nightmare. I'm afraid. The big brother thing only goes so far.

I hit send.

"Morgan?" He sounds confused, but surprisingly awake. "What's going on?"

"I had a nightmare." I have lost my damned mind. That's what's happening here. I take a breath, willing my lungs to act like actual lungs. He's still on the line. "I'm a little freaked out right now. I just wanted to hear a friendly voice. You busy?"

"I'm working on some specs for deploying that new strain of _Takakia Catherine_ , but it can wait. Why don't you come up to my office? We can talk."

The TranScribe clatters into the sink.

"Morgan?"

"Sorry. Yeah. I'll be up soon. Let me get dressed."

"Alright. See you soon."


	2. Gymnopedie 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mim enjoys music.

Igwe is playing Gymnopedie No.1 for the fourth time. He’s probably tired of me requesting it. I’m trying to decipher how to describe it. It feels like solar winds and fragments of planets finding their way into the orbit of an alien star. It feels like that moment when you realize you’re finally breathing without telling yourself to.

I watch his hands move across the keys. They’re fluid, like he was born doing this. I know it’s because of a neuromod. So does he. But it’s part of him now, as natural as anything else. I could copy it if I wanted, but I don’t. I know it wouldn’t sound right if I played it. I couldn’t capture that feeling. I’m still not even sure how to name it. Besides, Igwe likes having an audience. We write it off as part of my education. Learning to understand the human heart, the doctor calls it.

When he’s done I tell him about the fading stars and the solar winds, the dying nebulas that give birth to galaxies. Faint pinpricks of light coming into existence where there was darkness. Bits of comets falling into step with the orbit of planetary satellites. And all of this is happening in a single celestial arm, a small part of something bigger, slowly swirling out into the darkness. He nods as I speak. When he plays, he sees the movement of thoughts and signaling between neurons. He sees the inside of himself. A few steps outside of that, the consciousness of the universe is humming to the tune of a piano. He can’t see it, but he knows. 

“Consciousness is like music,” he says. “And vice versa. It brings us closer to what we are.”

“Even if what we are is a ‘creature from the stars’?”

“Especially then. You, me, the red chrysanthemums, everything on this ship that’s alive originally came from materials created in the heart of a star. I think that’s why Talos 1 was so popular with people. In a way, coming out here was like coming home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Ch. 19 is taking longer than intended due to work scheduling, I'm posting some more filler. This is one of the earlier bits, chronologically, and was supposed to be the introduction to a chapter that didn't quite make the cut. I thought it worked well enough on its own to post in Outtakes, though.


	3. Beer with Sho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The much anticipated outtake in which Mim sits down for a beer with Danielle.

“So, you can just be anyone?” Sho tilts her head at me as she cracks open another Duck beer.

“I guess?” I shrug. “I’d have to observe them for a while before I could actually copy them well, though.”

“Have you ever experimented with it?”

“Sometimes. I’ve been Dr. Adesina and Dr. Igwe before. I was even Elazar once.”

“Do you ever want to stay those people?”

“Not really. They’re already here, on Talos. They’re alive. Another copy of them on the station would be weird.” I sniff the can and wince at the smell of fermentation. “Besides, Morgan is comfortable. Igwe says this body is probably my ‘security blanket’ and that I might try to make my own eventually.”

_Sure. Why not? Be realistic here, you’re going to be Morgan Yu forever if you can get away with it._

“I wish I could just design my own body,” Sho scoffs. She slurps her drink and wipes her mouth with her sleeve. “I would be so hot.”

“Like your Fatal Fortress ranger?”

“Damned right.” She gestures at the can in front of me as if to tell me to drink and, reluctantly, I take a sip. It is exactly as awful as I imagined, but I hold it in anyway. “What do you think you’d be if you got around to making a new you? Or should I say **a new Yu.** ”

“I don’t know. Alex showed me pictures of a cousin on a lunar colony, 3D simulation models too. He said I could use Riley as a base if I wanted, since she’s not on Talos and is similar enough to Morgan that it wouldn’t be too drastic of a change.”

“Could you copy me?” She grins, unnaturally wide and enthusiastic. I’m briefly afraid for my life before I remember that she’s been drinking since ten this morning. It’s her ‘day off’ tradition: drink, listen to upbeat pop music, and play a Fatal Fortress simulator on her computer.

_Tell her no. Neither of us wants to sing drunken karaoke. Trust me. Or, you know, deal with crippling post-traumatic stress disorder._

“Maybe,” I answer quickly and take another sip of beer so I don’t have to explain why I won’t. Sho thinks about it. The weave around her is tangled, like the forgotten thread in a suit repair kit. I hear a familiar bass line. I see Abby. And, like that, I see it all washed away. Back at the table Sho has upended her can and gulped the entire thing down. She loudly expels air, laughs, and gestures at the beer in front of me.

“Not a fan?”

“It tastes somehow worse than that time I ate a box of soap.” I don’t think I sound funny, but Sho laughs anyway. I’ve decided I hate her grin and her tangled thoughts, the way the weave surrounds her in impenetrable knots of muddied memories. But, I guess, it could be kind of funny. I remember eating soap. It was a small tablet in a white box with a TranStar logo intended to last until we got another shipment. They were made to be used with minimal water for maximum foam. I remember bubbles flowing out from my throat when it landed in the can of coffee from that morning. I couldn’t hold them in. I ran to Alex. I remember him panicking, calling a doctor, and finally slowing down enough to see the soap box in my hand. He laughed until he cried, though he still insisted on having my not-stomach pumped. When it was over, he told me a story about Morgan as a child saying one of the many German words Alex told me not to repeat, how his parents put soap in his mouth for his ‘dirty’ language.

“Hey, Earth to _Dr. Yu_. Mars to Dr. Yu? Space to Morgan…” Sho trails off and sips at my now abandoned beer. I choke on bubbles no longer in my throat. She looks at me over the bottom of the can, gulps, and slams the empty container down on the table. “Awake again, huh?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about Alex.”

“You usually are,” she sighs. She offers me a half-finished box of vareniki that, at very least, smell better than the beer. I stretch my mouth wide enough to fit the remaining dumplings in and upend the box. Sho makes a noise of disapproval. I feel them swim inside me, dissolve in the animate blackness that forms my body. I don’t mimic organs unless I have to. I don’t like stomachs or intestines, how they writhe and ache as they try to digest food. I can manage lungs; I actually find breathing relaxing. But it’s easier to intake nutrients via osmosis. I can call to mind the taste, texture, and shape of the dumplings inside me again if I want to. Sho can’t. Sho knows them while they’re in her mouth and that’s it. She continues to stare as I slowly shove the box into my mouth.

“That’s not the part you eat.”

“Why?”

She starts to answer, stops, throws her hands in the air, and then reaches in front of her for a beer she already drank. After a moment of firmly grasping air, she sets her head on the table and stares at me from the corners of her eyes.

“I really wish I was you sometimes.”

“To eat boxes?”

“No. Well, maybe a little.” She groans and sits back up for a minute before she lies back on the table. “You’re so oblivious to, like, everything. Your whole world is your fake girlfriend and your brother and that simulation. The Earth is a giant Petri dish for cultivating new types of Typhon and your biggest problem is Morgan’s drama with Mikhaila.”

My arm turns white, porcelain, and constricts into me. I force my body to keep its shape in spite of the well-honed instinct to shift in order to avoid conflict. Dr. Adesina said that mimicry was a ‘maladaptive coping mechanism’. I create lungs for the sole purpose of making myself breathe regularly.

“What would change if I was sad or angry or actually affected by alcohol?”

“You’d be more human,” she snaps and shrugs as best she can with her arms stretched across the table. “Or you’d be wiped again and we’d be on to Morgan number ten, then another few awkward weeks of watching you go through the SIM again, and then a few more of trying to explain to you why mimicking the anatomical drawings in a book is bad while the Russian ice princess hate-cries like she’s the only one who’s ever had a partner die.”

“The who?”

“Christ. Mikhaila. I meant Mikhaila.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. We’re not on the best terms. Apparently the whole ‘bond over dead loved ones’ thing only works when one person’s loved one didn’t kill their father in a horrific science experiment. It’s not my fault I loved Abby. And that she was beautiful and perfect and was the best DM ever with the softest hair.” Sho groans and puts her arms over her head. “She wasn’t perfect. That’s a lie. But, all the stupid things made her better than perfect. She loved those…those awful animated Dungeons and Dragons cartoons. We hoarded dessert and coffee rations for a week once and had an all-night marathon of them. They were **so bad** , Mim. They were awful. But they made her so happy.”

“Maybe, you know, if Alex could make me….”

“No. I know what you’re going to say. No. No new Abby. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be the same. If Phantom Abby turned on us and had to be put down, I think I’d jump in the recycler with her.” I pat her shoulder as carefully as I can. I don’t know if it helps. She doesn’t respond. 

“I’m sorry,” I venture.

“Ugh. No. Sympathy is worse. Go back to bad ideas with Typhon.”

“You seemed like you needed it. Igwe had this presentation on consolation and human empathy the other day—”

“Mim, knock it off.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure how to help.”

“By getting more beer? Or something. Sometimes people just need to be allowed to be sad for a while. I mean, I did the Badass Space Heroine thing for years before now, Mim. This isn’t just ‘oh look, Sho’s too weak to get over one little Typhon attack’ or something. I went on the recons to Terra. I took security training. I had a shotgun I called ‘Abby’. I earned a right to be tired and sad. It’s that or I turn into a pistol-wielding automaton like Sarah.”

“I don’t think Elazar is that bad? But I haven’t seen her enough.”

“Yeah. By design. She wasn’t big on Alex’s plan after the first few fuck ups.”

“You said ten.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Ten I was here for. Alex has been at it a while.” Sho yawns as she struggles to her feet. “I’m getting more beer. You should drink some this time. I think a little alcohol would go a long way to solving your perpetual existential crisis.”

I wait at the table for what feels like too long to buy a new case of beer. The bar is empty, save for myself and Sho’s gathering collection of cans. I can feel people in the cafeteria, how the threads they weave fall slack without energy in them and their exhaustion flows through them like a half-frozen river. I yawn without meaning to, without needing to. I wonder if alcohol really does help. And, if it does, what’s so bad about wanting to know who you are that it becomes a necessity?

When Sho returns, I’m still puzzling over human experience and self-knowledge. She sets down an armload of green tea cans, along with a boxed loaf of brown bread.

“Would you believe the nerve of Tsang?” She opens a can of tea and angrily pushes it towards me. “He cut me off! Said I was already too drunk. That’s ridiculous, right?”

“I’m not sure I’m a good person to answer that? I’ve only been around one human who drinks. And that’s you.”

“I’m sober. Look at me, I’m articulate!”

“Why do you have a box of bread?”

“They were out of canned bread, obviously.”

I nod as I take a drink of the green tea. In so far as I can sense taste, I really like the tea. Maybe it’s the memories from Morgan associated with it, but it seems the most **right** out of the drinks I get. Sho sees me drinking and decides that she should also give me the bread box. I’m careful to peel it before eating this time, since boxes aren’t part of a human diet. It tastes like the tree bark in the arboretum, which is also not something humans eat.

“So, who do you think you’re going to be when you get sick of Morgan?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, speaking around the loaf of bread in my mouth. Sho makes a face and I absorb the loaf as quickly as possible. That unsettles her more. My fingers tap on the table, a familiar rhythm, and I move them to my hair. Long. Too long. I heard it grows on humans and let it grow, but it makes me look less and less like Morgan. “I was thinking, if I stop being him, that maybe I’d try just being Mim.”

“What’s stopping you from doing that now?”

“I don’t know enough about Mim yet.”

“Well, for starters, he eats boxes.” Sho grins when she notices that I’m already picking apart the box the bread came in and savoring the multicolored ink. “And he doesn’t like beer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these were supposed to be every week or so between updates, but things have been rough here. Working 40+ hours a week has drained me. And, to be quite honest, I’ve been back and forth considering orphaning 'Replica'. Due to a series of personal problems and overall life stuff, I’ve spent more and more time wondering if Replica is worth finishing. Is it too similar to some other stories? Is it not similar _enough_ to some other Prey stories? It feels like it’s taking ages to get to the pay off and I worry readers will lose interest. I don’t like plugging personal problems in author notes, but this is mainly to justify how long it’s been taking and, unfortunately, may continue to take. 
> 
> Anyway, to those who continue to stick around, I thank you all. I don’t know what draws people to certain stories, but I hope that maybe Mim’s continual desire to believe humanity can and should be saved means as much to you as it does to me. Or maybe you like the bad puns.
> 
> I'll see you all for Ch. 20 soon!
> 
> \- Mittens


	4. Cheat Codes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mim receives a set of cheat codes, though they aren't quite for what he was expecting.

I wake in my own bed in the observation room. My head is throbbing. I can hear half the thoughts of Talos II at once. I reach for the glass of water on my night stand only to find that it’s already empty. Beside it, the TranScribe is beeping away with new messages. I scroll down the list to find that message after message is from Alex. They all say the same thing. "Morgan, I'm worried about you. Come see me in my office so we can talk." The wording is different in each one and they’re all a few hours apart, judging by the timestamps. They span three days.

The other message is from Sho. "SPACE CONQUISTADORS CHEAT CODES". There's a note along with the audio file to meet her in the cafeteria tonight if I need more help with the boss level. I laugh a little and play it.

"Good morning, Morgan. Today is April 16th, 2038." I hear my own voice through the speaker. Morgan's, really, but too unsure. Too Typhon like. "If you're listening to this, I guess I'm not here to greet you properly. I hope Alex at least made you as charming and devastatingly handsome as the original. You'll need all the advantages you can get."

“So, Morgan…” The recording trails off and he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Do they actually call you Morgan? I know I volunteered myself for the project, so I kind of assumed you’d be me. For all I know, though, you could be Bellamy or Chang. If you are me and this works out, tell Alex to remake Jason next. You’re going to want him here for what’s coming up.”

The recording crackles out and back in. The time reads 2 AM a week after the original one. The voice that comes through is older, more tired than if only a single week passed. His words are static. They aren’t even really human.

“Alex is probably going to destroy these messages, but on the off chance he doesn’t there are a few things I want you to know. Well, first off, you’re me. The new me, I guess. Depending on how much of me they used, you’re in for all sorts of weird shit. Your body doesn’t like your brain, so jot that down. Your brain also doesn’t like your brain. Get used to random repetitive motion and forgetting what words are. Alex is a great translator when you need him, but try not to rely on him too much. We got through our doctorate program, right? Dealing with the day to day on Talos should be a breeze. If not, well, fake it ‘til you make it. They’ll call you eccentric and arrogant, obsessive and introverted. And those are just the things they’ll say to your face. It’s okay. You have a Ph.D. That’s like a free pass to be a little off.”

There’s another pause and I hear footsteps. I realize while I wait that I’m tapping my fingers on the table in a pattern. The same one I heard just beneath his voice in the recording. 

“Your memory is shot full of holes. If that phrase doesn’t sound familiar, you should probably stop listening. I am sorry, by the way. I didn’t realize how extensive the memory damage would be. If it helps, you have a lot of childhood trauma you don’t have to repress anymore. So that’s kind of a win.  
You know the others too by now. Elazar is against anything about his program, so you might have a hard time winning her over. Sho…” He stops to laugh and trails off into a sigh. “Sho is five hundred pounds of ‘fucking fight me’ in a one hundred pound body. She hates anything resembling authority or Typhon, so unless you ended up being a devastatingly beautiful woman who plays Fatal Fortress that’s probably going to be a lost cause. If you are devastatingly beautiful, well, congrats. Alex always said a sister would have been easier to live with, so make sure to give him plenty of hell just to disprove that. Igwe is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. He’s great. He’s going to think you’re amazing. He loves the idea of metempsychosis, though, so don’t be surprised if he genuinely thinks you are me.”

There’s a long enough break in the recording that I’d assume it was over if it wasn’t for the sounds of feet scuffing and coughing. I wince at the sound. It’s a thunderclap as much as a cough. It echoes. The hair on the back of my neck stands up reflexively and my skin ripples. He’s a Typhon. I know he isn’t. I’ve seen Morgan enough times to know what he is, but there’s a noise that flows through the recordings like whispering through the coral. It’s complete gibberish, but it’s there.

“Listen. If you don’t take anything else away from this, I need you to know that I’m sorry for what I got you into. Even if you are phantom me, you’re something else too. And that’s what they’re going to be looking at. You’re going to get poked and prodded and studied and experimented on. You probably already have been. Try to channel my stubbornness and Prometheus complex. They’re not really good personality traits, but they’ll help you get through this.” He exhales heavily and his voice gets closer. “And last thing. Apologize to Mikhaila for me. I haven’t told her about her father yet, I’m putting that off as long as I can. I don’t want to spend the time I have left with her hating me. We both had ulterior motives for dating, but I would’ve walked though an airless, Typhon-infested ship to bring her those boosters again.”

The recording stops there. My hand is shaking as I fast forward it though an hour of silence. There has to be more. That couldn’t be all Morgan left me. I hear words at the very end before it clicks off and rewind. I’m not sure if the voice is Morgan’s. It sounds like mine. My real voice. 

“I keep having this dream. I’m staring out at the blackness between the stars…And it cracks. Something out there puts it back together, seals the pieces in place with gold. The coral. It’s remaking us into something else. What, though?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the extended silence and for the second filler chapter in a row. Things are still hectic and I'm still feeling less than motivated to continue "Replica". I only ever set one rule for myself for the story: At the end of the day, Mim must continue to believe that humanity is fundamentally good and worth saving. It is a surprisingly hard rule to adhere to.
> 
> Anyway! Thank you to everyone for your patience, continued readership, and support. I am trying my best to keep updating, though it is harder to maintain the same quality without Old Beta Reader to brainstorm and edit. At least it's in first person POV, so if I sound like a confused Typhon it still works in character.


End file.
